Just Back Pride of America 7/1 (long)

[jcsdirector]

Sorry ignore the rest of this. I already posted!

Since I relied so much on this message board I thought I would post our experiences/thoughts with this ship. The negatives are pretty much what others have said: food and service, which the waiters will readily admit turnover is huge and they work too long without a break. That said, it was a terrific way to see the islands. Here are our thoughts:We were an extended family of 6 (ages 12-68) cruising to Hawaii for the first time. We have been on several cruises and the grandparents are frequent cruisers. We spent two nights at the Waikiki Marriot and thought the location was super and the beds tremendous to sleep in. We spent the time there doing excursions on our own (Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, Aloha Swap Meet). We had herd that by staying at the Marriott we could pre-book our dinner reservations at the specialty restaurants early. That was not the case—they would only make a request from the hotel NCL office and then we would still have to follow-up once we got on board. We elected to just wait until we boarded the ship as the personnel had made some minor mistakes with checking us in as it was.

Embarkation was very easy. We were the 12:45 bus and we were on the ship within an hour. No real lines to speak of at all. The cabins weren’t quite ready but that allowed me time to make dinner reservations for the week (more about that later).

The cabins were small but clean. The crew member in charge o our rooms always met our requests and the cabin was always clean when we came to and from the room. We did request top sheets and they were on our bed that first night.

Dining was not a very pleasant experience for us. I do not think we are food snobs but we were not impressed by the quality or service we received in the dining rooms. When we first arrived, I was told to go to each restaurant to make reservations. Since we had decided to try each of them, I headed of to each. I was surprised to find hostesses taking reservations on stickies or even worse, ripping off pieces of paper to enter into the computer later. After making reservations at all the restaurants, I went to the main dining room where I was told they were already booked in both for that evening. It couldn’t have been any later than 2:00 by this point. Having read many posts about the dining, we decided to roll with the punches and not worry about it. When we got up to our stateroom a little later I had a voicemail saying that the reservations we had made in East Meets West couldn’t be filled because they were overbooked. I returned the call, talked to a very unpleasant person Katherine and was told sorry but they couldn’t get me in for at least two more nights. So much for FreeStyle dining. The other reservations worked fine but the quality of the food varied greatly even in the same dining room. It would take a long time for drinks to finally appear and dinners were always over 2 hours long. I don’t mind taking a while to eat as long as the service is spaced out. This simply wasn’t the way it was. Waiters seemed almost embarrassed or distant when dealing with diners. I saw the hostess in one o the restaurants crying one night. A couple of our waiters told us that when they went off for vacation and returned, it was all new faces working the dining areas. NCL needs to get the kinks worked out on this.

Now the best part, the ports were marvelous! The main reason to take this cruise in my opinion is to see several different islands. I felt we had a good amount of time in each port and it was easy to rent a car and see the sights. We did all excursions on our own: renting snorkel equipment on one island and taking it to others, a luau, a snorkel cruise, and surf lessons. The people we encountered in every island were very welcoming and always helpful in answering our questions. The “Revealed” books were extremely helpful in planning our trip.

We didn’t do too much on the ship as our days were crammed in the ports. My teenagers enjoyed the comedians and we thought the juggler was pretty good. We did not do any of the ship activities like the art auction or hula lessons.

Disembarkation was very smooth. We did the express fly program and our bags were waiting in the airport at our final destination.

Overall, we really enjoyed the cruise but it was because of the ports, not the cruising experience per se. It was a great way to sample the islands and to see where we want to return on our next trip. Although we tried to continue to overlook the flaws with service and dining, it did sour the cruise experience, especially or my in-laws who are used to Princess cruises. I am sure we’ll be back to Hawaii but, I highly doubt it will be on an NCL cruise.